MOVIE REVIEW: 'Hugo' is wonderful

Henceforth when people speak of movie magic they will think instantly of Martin Scorsese’s mind-blowing “Hugo.” It embodies everything you love about the art of moving pictures, from the sense of wonder it inspires to the deep, emotional resonance sure to set the heart racing and tears welling.

By Al Alexander

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Al Alexander

Posted Nov. 23, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Nov 23, 2011 at 11:13 PM

By Al Alexander

Posted Nov. 23, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Nov 23, 2011 at 11:13 PM

» Social News

Henceforth when people speak of movie magic they will think instantly of Martin Scorsese’s mind-blowing “Hugo.” It embodies everything you love about the art of moving pictures, from the sense of wonder it inspires to the deep, emotional resonance sure to set the heart racing and tears welling.

Right from the start you’re awestruck, as you swoop down from a gorgeous aerial shot of 1930s Paris and dive straight into a bustling train station, where Robert Richardson’s camera hurriedly tracks a little boy as he races breathlessly through the building’s nooks and crannies en route to the top of a huge mechanical clock tower.

From there, the lad longingly peers through the clock’s massive face at the hundreds of people scurrying below. If you know anything about the director’s childhood, you know this is Scorsese himself, the chronic asthmatic whose malady often kept him confined indoors, where he would sit alone and watch the world go by from the safety of his bedroom window.

Those days of forced isolation were long and painful, but they proved invaluable in Scorsese’s evolution into one of the medium’s most observant filmmakers. But as great as Scorsese has been from “Taxi Driver” to “The Departed,” none of his movies has been as personal or deeply felt as “Hugo.” It’s also Scorsese’s first family film, and watching him get in touch with his inner Spielberg is not just enthralling, it’s invigorating, both for the audience and the director.

This is Scorsese like you’ve never seen him before. And while some may quibble about the sacrilege of him resorting to such Michael Bay trickery as computer-generated sets and 3-D effects, most will marvel at what Scorsese does with such tools in enriching the cinematic experience. Unlike most 3-D movies, “Hugo” uses the technology to put you directly into the middle of the Dickensian world of Scorsese’s surrogate, 13-year-old Hugo Cabret. You can practically feel the station’s denizens brushing up against you, as you begin to lose yourself in an imaginative realm (courtesy of production designer Dante Ferretti) comprised of gears, gadgets and gizmos. It’s all rendered via smoke and mirrors, of course, but that’s precisely the point of a movie that celebrates movies and the dreams that go into making them.

Like Scorsese, Hugo (Asa Butterfield) cherishes the moments he spends with his clockmaker father (Jude Law) inside darkened theaters watching the death-defying stunts of Harold Lloyd and comedic genius of Charlie Chaplin. But those joys end abruptly when a deadly fire renders Hugo orphaned and homeless. With no other place to go, Hugo takes up residence inside the station’s clock tower, surviving on the milk and croissants he swipes from the depot’s merchants.

One such proprietor, an elderly curmudgeon known as Papa Georges (a superb Ben Kingsley), takes particular offense to Hugo’s offenses and determinedly conspires to ferret out the boy and exact his idea of justice. Little do the two of them know that each holds the key to healing the other’s broken heart. To say any more about their connection would spoil the film’s many mysteries and revelations. But suffice it to say, the climax is quite moving. Ditto for the friendship that develops between Hugo and Georges’ eccentric young ward, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who rightly sees Hugo as her ticket to the adventures she desperately craves.

Page 2 of 2 - The two youngsters make for great company, too, thanks to the immense talents of Butterfield and Moretz, who can best be described as Meryl Streep in a 13-year-old’s body. She is sensational at projecting intense longing, and gives Sacha Baron Cohen (playing the depot’s bumbling, child-hating inspector) a run for his money in drawing laughs with her quirky quips.

The real star, though, is a broken-down bucket of bolts, rods and gears called an automaton, a mechanical robot Hugo uses blood, sweat and thievery to try to repair in hopes it will provide a connection to his dead father. It also provides him an unexpected link to movie pioneer Georges Melies, the magician turned filmmaker who invented the concept of special effects and founded the first movie studio.

“Hugo” teaches much about Melies and his concept of turning his bizarre dreams into motion pictures. But more importantly, it makes a strong case for something very near and dear to Scorsese: film preservation. Sadly, a majority of Melies’ sci-fi extravaganzas, shot in and around the start of the 20th century, were destroyed in the aftermath of World War I. But through the magic of movies, Scorsese brings them vividly back to life in the confines of John Logan’s cleverly conceived script based on the novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick (cousin of legendary producer David O. Selznick).

As much as I’d love to tell you how the fictionalized little boy and the real-life Melies come to form an unbreakable bond, I just can’t bring myself to do it because the beauty of the film is in discovering it on your own. But suffice it to say, Scorsese leaves you spellbound, as you succumb to the magic and the joy that is “Hugo.”